Beyond the Aching Door (The Fatebound Duology, #1)

by Victoria Mier

He gazed down at her as if he would sacrifice everything for her

So Raegan did the only thing she could, which was to clutch both sides of his jacket and pull herself to him. Her mouth crashed against the King’s in desperate, keening want. He met her with bottomless need, wrapping his hands around her waist as she threaded her fingers into his hair. Every place her body met his form came alive with yearning awareness, as if she had never quite understood what it meant to be flesh and blood until this moment.

“I am sorry,” the King said in a strained, hoarse tone. “You have done nothing wrong. It is me. I—I cannot.” Raegan curled her hands together, fingernails biting into her flesh as she watched him. Eventually, the King’s dark eyes met hers. “Not again,” he said softly, shaking his head. “Never again.”

“I want you,” he murmured. “I always do. But you make me weak. There is no other way to say it.” At least he had the decency to look at her when he said it. But it did little to assuage the way Raegan’s anger turned over in her stomach, sour and sharp.

The implications of his words sunk into Raegan like a knife. The only person that could make any sense of the alien feelings and the ancient yearning and the incoherent longing had stayed away—and on purpose?

“What?” Raegan spat, anger covering up the hurt,

She sat up straighter, her hands curling inward, nails cutting into her flesh. “For how long, Oberon? How long have you been discarding me?”

“That’s like hundreds of years. Hundreds of years you just . . . abandoned me. To this. Do you have any idea what it is to ache and ache and ache for something and not even know what it is?”

“I know deep in my marrow that I have walked other worlds but no longer possess the keys to their doors. It’s like I have loneliness stitched into my skin and you’re the only person who knows how to remove it.”

The King’s eyes were dark and wild, his features feral, everything about him the stuff of myth and nightmare. “You are the weakness,” he snarled, so close to her that she could still feel the heat of him. “An infestation, a sickness, and how quickly you spread. Look at you—three decades you have squandered accepting that the world was what you were told it was, despite the ache in your chest that so clearly said otherwise.”

I’m actually going to cry now. They both need to shut up

“You admit that I am hardly more than a fleeting memory, a means to an end,” he spat, cruel and appraising. “And yet you will happily forget about your supposedly beloved father long enough to share my bed. How very weak.”

The shadows tore themselves from the walls at his command, constricting and stretching into horrible shapes, demonic and ungodly things creeping in the gloom. “Do not,” the Unseelie King commanded, his voice ringing out from every inch of the room, “ever touch me again.”

“Fuck” crying

She spat something in return, not even sure of the words she spoke, and turned her back to him, desperately scanning the room for an escape.

I would have walked out. That would have been the straw that broke me. But I also would have hoped he’d chase after me

I’m crying so much more bc this is all so fucking sad.

Anger was still wrapped around her midsection, sorrow like a weight in the pit of her stomach. Would he expect an apology? Would he offer one? Could she make her mouth say, “I’m sorry,” even if she wanted to? Or would it catch in her throat the same way “I love you” always did?

What happens if she just gives herself to the Protectorate??

“I don’t want to run, Oberon,” Raegan said, putting as much force into the words as she could. “I want to restore my memory, and then I want to hunt the Protectorate down and take back everything they stole from me.”

She’s such a fucking bad ass

“You need not respond,” the King began, flicking the windshield wipers on as rain suddenly spattered the windshield, “but I am sorry for what I said earlier. It was cruel, which I admit is not out of character for me. I often find it simpler to make you hate me. Then you leave, and I need only summon the strength to resist following.”

A man who can apologize .. love to see it. But at some point… he has to choose her. He has to choose everything over her. Bc that is what she deserves.

“May you see this through. Seek the door Cormac Overhill left ajar.”

Her dad knew her memories have been lost to time? He put all this in motion so she could be home again. If this is true I will be destroyed.

“He made his bargain, played his part.”

“You put him on this path, didn’t you?” Raegan demanded, her voice hoarse with fury and sorrow. “He just wanted magic back—real magic. And you used that against him to set all of this into motion.”

To her surprise—and Fate’s—Raegan threw her head back and laughed, the sound harsh and full of derision. “From the bottom of my heart, fuck you. I hate you.”

Raegan wondered if she had spent all these lives catering to the whims of a being that did not even have the decency to let her be unmade when the time came.

“And what gave you the right to do what you’ve done to him?”

“Look at him. He has kept to the path all these years, forced to watch his people fade if he does not play your game. Is that all you have to offer your chosen ones? An endless exhaustion we carry around our necks like a millstone? If that’s the case, have the decency to end it. At least in death we will not have to feel your filthy fingers on our Threads.”

Oh my god. She is magnificent

Raegan summoned every ounce of her bottomless rage. Then she threw her head back and screamed. Fate could choke on her this time.

Wait… the king said she wouldn’t be able to cause a monsoon again…

“I did what I should’ve done a thousand fucking years ago,” she responded, tilting her head back to meet his gaze. “Fuck her. Fuck destiny. Fuck all of it, Oberon. I’m so angry.”

“I have spent so long trying to live without you,” Oberon panted against her throat, the curve of her waist caught between his palms. “No more.”

“I am yours,” the King murmured, each syllable dripping with gravity and something not unlike devotion, “and I will happily burn in the fires of your rage. You need only command me.”

ITS ABOUT FUCKING TIME!! YASSS! This is what I’ve been waiting for!!

“Aren’t we going together?” Raegan asked, pushing down the panic that arose at the idea of navigating Baba Yaga’s realm alone. “I will be right behind you,” the King replied.

The great, impossible thing before her brought his forehead to hers, one hand sliding around her waist. She lived a thousand lives in that moment—nothing but the muted rainfall echoing around them.

She told herself to leave. She told herself to crush the triumphant bloodlust and throbbing arousal that bloomed within her as she watched the King tear the Protectorate operatives limb from limb.

that meant she’d never had a deal with the King at all. Not once was he sworn by any bargain to not harm her or act in her best interests. And yet . . . She chewed on the inside of her lip. She needed to sleep. She had no idea why the King would do such a thing.

Bc he never intended to harm her in the first place

Baba Yaga said, leveling her gaze at Raegan, “but the Unseelie King would never harm you.”

“What an odd thing it must be,” the witch continued, “to have something like him belong to you.”

“That is not what I said. In your marrow, before all the rest, you are like me. You are a witch. And we are the darkest parts of the forest and the woodsmoke on the wind when October comes roaring in. We belong to no one. We don’t even belong to ourselves, not all of the time, and certainly not the way everyone thinks we do.

“The King belongs to you. It is a strange thing, indeed.”

“Something feels different this time,” Baba Yaga said eventually, sounding younger than what seemed possible. “So maybe it will be alright. Maybe.”

“What do you want?”

She wanted the King to fuck her until the howling ache in her core finally subsided. And then, she wanted to tear apart every single person who had twisted magic and turned this once-beautiful world into a ruinous piece of cruel rock floating in dead space.

“I don’t want to give a fuck about Fate anymore,” Raegan said suddenly, fiercely, her fists curling as she met his gaze. “What do I actually want? I want to take everything back. I want my father. I want magic. I want revenge.”

“And I want you, Oberon,” she said, unable and unwilling to stop herself. “I want you as I always have: completely. Not in spite of what you are and not because of it, either. And I want you before the Seal is removed, before I might become someone else. Just once. Just once in this body, in this life, as me, I want you.”

“You are my deepest wound,” Oberon murmured, his eyes searching hers. “And yet I cannot live without the taste of blood in my mouth.”

“Make me remember you,” she gasped as he pulled the garment over his head. “Whatever comes next, whoever I wake up as, make me remember you, Oberon.”

want you, Exiled King of the Unseelie Court. Give me your inhumanity and your cruelty. Leave your mark on me like a bloodstain.”

“But you do not belong to me,” he continued, bringing his mouth back down to her throat, lips grazing her skin. “So you leave me no choice but to ruin you for any other lover you might take.”

making her his, as much as he was hers.

“Raegan,” he said, both hands returning to her hips, a question tilting his low, deep voice upwards. She would’ve done anything he asked. He possessed her completely and entirely. “I want you,” the King told her, “to give me your rage.” Fire roared through her body, and Raegan did as he bid.

Finally! This was so sensual! But also… I fucking love him.

But she did. In the worst way, the statement was a compliment—that she had the power to weaken a being molded by primordial forces, torn from the night sky itself.